From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov
Transcript for: Comptroller General Testifies to U.S. House on
Government Efficiency and Effectiveness
Description: In his April 9, 2013, testimony to the U.S. House of
Representatives, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro provides an overview of
GAO's 2013 Annual Report on opportunities to reduce fragmentation,
overlap, and duplication and achieve other financial benefits for the
federal government. The Comptroller General also follows up on progress
from GAO's 2012 and 2011 Annual Reports.
Related GAO Works: GAO-13-496T: Government Efficiency And Effectiveness:
Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and
Achieve Other Financial Benefits; and GAO-13-279SP: 2013 Annual Report:
Actions Needed to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and
Achieve Other Financial Benefits
Released: April 2013
[First Screen]
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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Actions Needed to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication, and
Achieve other Financial Benefits
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U.S. Comptroller General
Gene L. Dodaro
Opening Statement
April 9, 2013
>> Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be here this
afternoon. Ranking Member Cummings, I appreciate your comments about our
staff. Members of the committee, I'm very pleased to be here today to
discuss our most recent report on ways to make government more efficient
and effective.
We've, in this report, highlighted 17 areas where we've focused on areas
of fragmentation, overlap, or duplication in the federal government and
made recommendations to address these issues. For example, from 2002
until most recently, the Department of Defense has moved from 2
camouflage ground base uniforms to up to 7 so that they're service-based
purchases rather than joint purchases, thereby forgoing the opportunity
for tens of millions of dollars of savings, but also importantly from
assuring equivalent protection of servicemembers during joint
operations. We made recommendations to address that issue. Also in the
Medicaid program, which is an area where there's a large amount of
improper payments, billions of dollars a year, the Department of Health
and Human Services, the CMS, has taken a number of actions. However, we
pointed out one action where they actually hired two contractors for
every state; one to review the data to decide which claims to audit, and
another contractor to audit the claims. We said that's inefficient,
duplicative--one contractor will do.
And then also in the area of geospatial or mapping information, there
are billions of dollars spent every year by the federal government to
buy this information and it's been well reported that there are
duplicative investments. And so, we've focused on recommendations to
ensure more effective coordination of a joint committee that's focused
on these activities--that needs to do a better job. OMB needs to have
more visibility and to be able to prevent these duplicative investments
and it needs to become a priority. In this case, Mr. Cummings, they have
a plan. It's not executed, Mr. Chairman, and it's not a priority and
it's got to be both and, thereby, reaping benefits of millions of
dollars in this area.
Now we also identified 14 other areas where there are opportunities for
cost savings and revenue enhancements. In cost savings, we've testified
before this committee on Medicare demonstration pilot, on Medicare
Advantage, and recommended the pilot be canceled. At the time we did
that, there was possibility of saving $8.3 billion because this pilot
only rewards average performing plans and is not really gonna
demonstrate what it's intended to demonstrate. Right now, there's still
an opportunity to save $2 billion but Congress has to act soon in order
to cancel this pilot. Also, in the Medicaid area, there are billions of
dollars spent in addition to reimbursements for claims in order to make
sure that there's money provided for uncompensated care. We think
there's not enough oversight over these areas and there's costs being
reimbursed that are well in excess of the costs that are spent to
deliver those services, and this doesn't make sense. So there needs to
be more transparency and accountability.
We made recommendations on the revenue side, for example, we made a
number of recommendations to the IRS in order to help close a $385
billion tax gap. There's also opportunities for the Congress to
legislate in the tobacco tax area to make the tax equivalent for similar
types of products. That could garner the federal government several
hundred millions of dollars and up to over a little over a billion
dollars a year and make that more equitable.
Now turning to our prior reports, if I could direct your attention to
the chart here. This shows the percent of actions that have been taken
on the 130 recommendations we've had already. 12 percent, as you
mentioned Mr. Chairman, 16 or 12 percent have been acted on. 66 percent
have been, or 87 of them, we've had partial addressment, and 21 percent
or 27 of those actions have not been addressed at all. So there's plenty
of opportunities and the opportunities are throughout government. I'll
show my last chart. This is for all 3 years, we've got 162 areas, 380
specific recommendations for action that go across virtually every major
department and agency of the federal government. Many of--here are in
Defense, HHS, and Treasury, which are about 56 percent of total
obligations for the year, so many opportunities. Mr. Chairman, I look
forward to answering your questions today and working with this
committee to make government more efficient and effective on behalf of
the American people.